


I Want To Hold Your Hand

by vix_spes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, merlingwaine_halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2018-05-01 01:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5186423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwaine isn’t above manipulating Merlin to get what he wants</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Hold Your Hand

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea guys. I mean, it sounds as though it will be really creepy.” Merlin felt pangs of guilt even as he spoke, knowing that he was going to be the only person in their group to veto the idea.

The idea in question was the flyer Arthur was waving around enthusiastically. One of the local historical societies was opening up a nearby castle for Halloween with the promise that it was haunted. There were going to be actors and actresses dressed up in period costume, guided tours, ghost stories by candlelight and stalls selling food. Morgana was throwing her annual Halloween fancy dress party the following weekend, but as Halloween itself fell in the middle of the school week, they wanted to do something then as well.

The thing was, Merlin loved the idea in theory; he was a bit of a history geek so guided tours and people dressed up in period costumes really appealed to him. He didn’t have any real objection to the ghost stories. What he did object to was the fact that it was going to be dark, creepy, Halloween and they were going to be deliberately trying to scare people. Merlin let out a squawk as he was pulled backwards off the arm of the chair into Gwaine’s lap. He struggled briefly seeing as they were in the common room and surrounded by other sixth formers, but gave up when Gwaine simply tightened his grip.

“Come on Merlin, it’ll be fun.”

“No it won’t. Well it might be but it’ll be scary and you know I’m not good with scary.”

Merlin scowled furiously as Arthur laughed at that. Git. They all knew that Merlin was useless at scary things. Take their cinema trip a couple of weeks ago; the latest horror film had just been released and all of them had gone. Morgana, Percival, Leon and Elyan had all been fairly engrossed in the film while Lance and Gwen had been trying to eat each other’s faces. Arthur had been glaring at Gwen and Lance and Merlin had spent the entire two hours either with his hands covering his eyes or with his face buried in Gwaine’s shoulder.

“Come on Merlin, please. It won’t be the same if you don’t come.”

This definitely wasn’t fair because Gwaine was pulling out the big guns now; pleading eyes and practically pouting. “Fine, I’ll come.”

“YES!”

Merlin couldn’t help but smile at the look of delight on Gwaine’s face as he high-fived Percival and then grasped Merlin’s face to plant a smacker of a kiss on his lips. He could feel the heat radiating from his face as a result of the blush when Morgana wolf-whistled and there were cat-calls from various points around the room. Sometimes he hated the fact that he had a boyfriend with no concept of when public displays of affection were appropriate; last year they had both been given detention because Gwaine had thought that the Headmaster’s office was a good place to try and discover exactly which point on Merlin’s neck made him squeak if Gwaine bit it. Gwaine had just slid his hand down Merlin’s trousers and discovered the point on his neck as Aredian walked in the door and the Headmaster had been far from impressed.

~*~

_A week later…_

Gwaine made small talk with Hunith as he waited for Merlin to make an appearance. Merlin’s mum was one of the few parents that he’d been introduced to who had actually liked him (although he was fairly certain that there were very few people that Hunith didn’t like) and whom he liked back. She was certainly better than the look of utter disdain on Uther Pendragon’s face whenever he saw Gwaine. As he explained what they were going to be doing for the evening, he could also see the knowing look on Hunith’s face that said she knew exactly what he was up to. Hunith knew as well as Gwaine did that Merlin was useless with anything remotely scary; he’d had Hunith forge a doctor’s note so that he could avoid a school trip to the London Dungeons. Luckily, before she could call him out on his plans, Merlin made an appearance. Gwaine couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face at how adorably dorky his boyfriend looked.

Well, he always looked adorably dorky, or at least he did to Gwaine, but there was just something about seeing him all bundled up against the chill in the air. Merlin was dressed in layer upon layer of t-shirt, shirt, hoodie, coat, scarf and beanie hat. Gwaine loved it when the weather turned colder because it gave him so many more opportunities to keep Merlin close to him. He was unashamed of the fact that he was a cuddle whore and despite Merlin being ridiculously skinny, he was great to cuddle. That was the main reason that Gwaine had pushed for them to go to this Halloween evening; he knew how scared Merlin was going to get, but all that mattered to Gwaine was that it would inevitably mean that he got a scared Merlin clinging to him for the whole evening, something that he had absolutely no complaints about.

Several hours later and they had finished doing the guided tours of the majority of the castle, listened to some Edgar Allen Poe by candlelight and drunk hot cider accompanied by chocolate and cinnamon cookies. The only thing left for them to do was the guided tour of the dungeons, the portion of the castle that was supposedly the most haunted and where they stood the greatest chance of seeing a ghost. This was the bit that Merlin was dreading. He had been eyeing people emerging from the dungeons all evening, taking note of those who were paler than they had been upon entering and who looked as though they had had the fright of their lives. As their group made their way to the entrance to the dungeons, Merlin lagged behind so much that Gwaine was convinced that he would refuse to even enter. He didn’t refuse, but he did hesitate for several long minutes before hurrying forward to where Gwaine was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

Gwaine didn’t have to wait any longer to achieve his goal for the evening as Merlin clung to his hand and arm immediately with both of his own hands. He refused to let go even to head down the rather precarious stairs so Gwaine had to concentrate doubly hard to ensure that neither of them went arse over tit. When they reached the bottom of the stairs and the proper entrance to the dungeons, Merlin was clinging to Gwaine so hard it was as though they were surgically attached; there was barely an inch between them. Gwaine just grinned as his friends rolled their eyes at him and gave him knowing looks; they had all known what he was up to and all found it highly amusing that Merlin was so completely clueless about Gwaine’s scheming, however harmless it might be.

Forty-five minutes later, an absolutely traumatised Merlin was led out of the dungeons by Gwaine. To the boys disappointment, they hadn’t seen any real ghosts, but the management had employed similar techniques to those used at the London Dungeons and Madam Tussaud’s; they had actors dressed up rather ghoulishly to recreate scenes from the dungeons in addition to scaring the visitors. There had been a couple of screams from both Morgana and Gwen, Gwen moreso than Morgana, but then very little freaked Morgana out. Merlin though, took the prize for the number of screams. He hadn’t let go of Gwaine for the entire time, Arthur was moaning that Merlin had broken his fingers when he had squeezed them once in fright and he had hidden behind Percival and Leon on numerous occasions. As Leon led the way back to the car, Merlin was still as white as a sheet and wasshaking like a leaf so much that as they got in the car, Gwen handed him some chocolate that she had had secreted in her handbag.

“You so owe me for this evening,” Merlin groused as he squirmed in Gwaine’s lap. Several of them had driving licenses now but out of those that did, only Leon’s parents felt that he was trustworthy enough to drive a car full of teenagers. Especially a car that was fuller than it should be. In order to fit them all in, Leon had to take his dad’s estate car and just pray that they didn’t get caught by any police. Arthur went in the front passenger seat as far away from Gwen and Lance as possible because he was still bitter as hell that his former girlfriend had cheated on him with one of his friends. Percival and Elyan were in the boot where Percival could stretch his legs out and ducking every time a car went past so that people didn’t know they were in the boot with no seatbelts on. Morgana sat in the middle of the backseat with Gwaine and Lance on either side of her with Merlin and Gwen on their respective boyfriends laps.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Gwaine leant in for a kiss that Merlin willingly gave although he did squeak as Gwaine’s hands started to wander.

“Gwaine, don’t you dare grope Merlin in my dad’s car. I have no intention of explaining suspicious stains to my dad.” Leon threatened from the front seat, glancing briefly in the rear-view mirror.

Merlin cringed as the rest of the car burst into laughter. Oh yes, Gwaine definitely owed him for this.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would prefer to comment on LJ, you can do so [here](http://vix-spes.livejournal.com/104542.html)


End file.
